Almost every proposed change to the voting system is carried out with the intention of improving the prospects of the party that introduces the change. The Tories favour overseas voting and voter identification, while Labour wants to lower the voting age and encourage postal voting. The Lib Dems, since they lost power, have been great advocates for proportional representation, but when last in majority government, they opposed it.

The latest battleground is compulsory voting, which some think tanks close to Andy Burnham advocate.

It is not, in principle, wrong to ask citizens to carry out certain actions that are needed for the good of the state as a whole. In both world wars, it was accepted not only that men could be conscripted into the armed forces, but that labour could be directed by the authority of the state. Similarly, one of the great jewels of the constitutional settlement, trial by jury, is dependent upon compulsory attendance by citizens who have not volunteered and are chosen effectively by lot.

Are these comparable to voting? Conscription for war is not. It has only been done in the case of dire necessity, although national service continued for a few years after the Second World War had ended. Failure to vote does not threaten the stability of the nation.

It is more akin to jury service, when the needs of the community are placed above those of the individual in a very specific context. Jurors are required so that justice may both be done and be seen to be done, maintaining confidence in the system and preventing an overmighty state from taking people’s liberty, without a chance to show their innocence to an independent group. As with voting, it requires a decision to be made, and simply not wanting to turn up is not a valid excuse for avoiding the service.

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The Daily Telegraph, the journal of conservatism, has been arguing about the merits of net zero this week, with two main articles in favour and two against. Each of the authors is distinguished and worth reading, especially as in the case of Tim Stanley when writing something unexpected.

Lord Frost made the case against net zero with, to my mind, clinical efficiency, Ambrose Evans Pritchard returned to the fray with verve, while Allister Heath was uncharacteristically optimistic. In light of this I thought I should join the discussion and start with a basic principle of conservatism.

There is a strong argument that the origins of the two-party system are to be found in the 17th century civil war between the Royalists, who were the founding Tories, and the Parliamentarians, who were the original Whigs (in spite of Dr Johnson’s quip that the Devil was the first Whig). The Whigs subsequently became the socialists, and the net zero argument fits neatly within their worldview.

The Royalists accepted the imperfect world as it was, while the Parliamentarians believed they could create a new city upon a hill. In theological terms, it may perhaps simplistically be seen as a divide between Thomists and Augustinians.

Conservatives recognise the limitations of mankind’s ability to change the world. There are forces that are stronger, be they divine or natural, which mock man’s efforts. An example of this is that one of the consequences of reducing pollutants in the air is that more sunshine comes through, and this has made Europe hotter than the parts of the world that have not cleaned up their atmospheres.

This is not to oppose the reduction of pollutants in the air; it has been a thoroughly good thing to do, as dirty air was responsible for killing people, or at least bringing about early death. Yet this well-intentioned and good effect has led to more intense heat waves, which is clearly not something the advocates of clean air wanted.

It is a reminder that man is not as powerful as he sometimes thinks, and is certainly not omniscient. “Man proposes, God disposes”, as Thomas à Kempis said.

This limitation of capability is an essential part of the Tory makeup. Realising that it will not be possible to do certain things, therefore there is no point in trying. Often this has been moral rather than ecological. In the 17th century the Puritans thought that godly living would ensure that a perfect world would be created. Many of them also expected that the second coming would occur and they needed to be ready for it. With the Restoration in 1660, all of this piety was washed away in a sea of licentiousness.

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While I was an MP, I often went to village fetes with my children and, mainly thanks to the generosity of the stall holders, they would win blow up toys; hammers and swords and such like. For a few days they would be much used, sometimes even to launch an attack on me, but they would then deflate and be of no further use.

I fear this government is proving to be one of these toys, and is losing its air even faster than they did. This is regrettable, as the country needs decent government and a sense that the new leader is in control.

The failures started almost immediately after Andy Burnham had kissed hands. A schedule of sackings and appointments was promised to the media and not met. Delays began to creep in as the hours went by and the plans, such as they were, failed to take shape. The reshuffle was a mix of vengeance and hubris, showing a lack of care and attention, with important roles being offered about as if they were mere baubles, rather than instrumental in running the country.

The best example of this is the treatment of Rachel Reeves. It is not unkind, merely truthful, to say that she was not a success at the Treasury. It proved to be beyond her, but it is one of the most difficult jobs in government, so failing as the Chancellor is not a particular disgrace. However, when the nation faces a serious security threat, the Defence Secretary is even more important, so to offer this role to someone who had failed is rather scandalous. It shows a shameful disregard for the security of the nation, and raises questions about the seriousness with which Burnham approaches not just defence, but the whole of government. Is it just an elaborate game for him?

Vengeance was shown by the number of loyal Starmer supporters who were fired. On his election as leader, Burnham called for unity and an end to factionism, a call he repeated at the beginning of his first cabinet meeting. But he started his term in office by promoting his faction and damning everyone else. This is the same mistake Liz Truss made when she became Prime Minister. She hardly appointed anyone who had backed Rishi Sunak, which was an error. They included, among their number, some able people who then had little to do on the backbenches other than to plot against her. Burnham is taking the same risk.

The new Prime Minister, who has been spinning his spider’s web in Manchester to entrap and devour Starmer, will find his appeals for unity now fall on deaf ears, as he has not shown the magnanimity that is worthy of his high office. In a mean-spirited reshuffle he has sown the seeds of dissent, which will be husbanded by any policy failures or missteps that Prime Ministers inevitably make.

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This has remained in my mind after listening on Friday to Andy Burnham’s first speech as leader of the Labour Party, for it failed in its structure, content, and delivery. As I want the country to be well-governed, I wish Andy Burnham well, and therefore hoped for some inspiration from his opening words. But it was a poor specimen of the politician’s craft, so I thought it worth writing about how to make a speech.

Our ancestors attached great importance to rhetoric. It was studied, and taught by Aristotle and Cicero. This interest continued down the ages, so that Thomas Hobbes, the famous philosopher, wrote a book entitled The Art of Rhetoric (1637).

Yet the modern age seems less concerned with it, to the detriment of political life. In his books, Hobbes set out the four points of a speech: the Proeme, the Propositions, the Proofs, and the Epilogue. He described the Proeme as resembling an overture in music or the prologue of a play. It introduces and sets the tone.

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On the 250th anniversary of the United States, I thought it might be interesting to compare its Constitution with our own. In many ways, the American Constitution is an attempt to perfect and purify the British one. It is an enlightenment experiment in the perfectibility of rational beings, as opposed to the untidy reality of an old Constitution.

The framers of the American Constitution were heavily influenced by Montesquieu’s theory of the separation of powers. He had been concerned that liberty was at risk whenever the executive, legislature and judiciary were in the hands of the same people. Hence, this was prohibited by the new Constitution.

Interestingly, Montesquieu thought he was describing the British Constitution, but he clearly was not. However, his understanding encouraged the Founding Fathers, many of whom believed themselves to be English gentlemen who were being treated badly by the Crown, and needed to re-establish their rights.

What this meant in practice was that in America the various arms of government are entirely separate. Government ministers do not sit in Congress, with the exception of the Vice President, who has a casting vote in the Senate, and any congressman who becomes a minister has to resign his seat. The judiciary is again separate, and although subject to confirmation hearings in the Senate, as are ministers, they do not sit or engage with Congress.

As the American Constitution is codified, the ultimate arbiter of it is the US Supreme Court. The Founding Fathers were nervous of democracy, so made changing the Constitution difficult, so that in most cases the judges’ verdicts are final and can overrule the democratic part of the system. This has made the judiciary highly political, and appointments to it are made by presidents on the basis of party affiliation. This has had the effect of making the Supreme Court extremely powerful, but it does not always follow the desires of its own political side.

The recent case on birth citizenship is an example of a case that went against the president, in spite of the Republican majority on the Supreme Court. This is particularly interesting, as the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which gives birthright citizenship, was a post-Civil War change that gave citizenship to black Americans, which they had been denied by the Dred Scott judgment of the Supreme Court in 1857¹.

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St. John Fisher was martyred two weeks before St Thomas More, on 22nd June 1535, and each year that day is now set aside to commemorate these two saints. In the Sarum Rite used by the Catholic Church at that time, it was the feast of St. Alban, the proto-martyr of England. The two men went to their deaths for the same fault in the eyes of Henry VIII. But while More is widely celebrated, Fisher has been broadly forgotten, yet his martyrdom was equally worthy.

Fisher was born around 1459. The argument for this early date is that the portrait of him by Holbein puts his age at 74, and cannot have been painted while he was in the Tower of London, so an age at death of 76 seems probable. He was the son of Robert and Agnes, who seem to have been fairly prosperous, and was born in Beverley in Yorkshire. He certainly showed in his life the gritty determination associated with that county.

Fisher was primarily a scholar and cleric, but via Henry VII’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, he came to national prominence. He greatly admired Margaret and was her spiritual adviser from 1497, when he was appointed her confessor, until her death shortly after Henry VIII’s succession to the throne.

It was through her influence that Henry VII promoted him in 1504 to be Bishop of Rochester, one of the poorest bishoprics, and he did so after seeking Margaret’s permission. Henry wrote to his mother, saying that he did not wish to offend her by appointing her confessor, but he did so because he had had heard of Fisher’s “great and singular virtue… especially his good and virtuous living and conversation”.

That Fisher lived virtuously was borne out after his imprisonment in the Tower, when the king’s men raided his living quarters. The only items of value they found were plate for liturgical use and books which they wantonly destroyed. In great excitement they found a locked box in his private oratory, which they took away to open in front of witnesses, expecting to find much treasure within. All they found were a hair shirt and three scourges which Fisher used to purify himself. When informed of this, Fisher said he would have removed them had he not left in such a hurry, for he did not want his piety to be a matter of pride.

As well as being Margaret’s spiritual adviser, Fisher was a senior figure at Cambridge in 1494, when he was the Senior Proctor, becoming Master of Michaelhouse in 1497, and Vice-Chancellor in 1491. At this time, Cambridge was going through one of its phases of listlessness, with little learning and no money. Fisher helped change both of these conditions.

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Part VIII: The Report Stage and Third Reading

Part VII: The C…

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Andy Burnham’s advocacy of devolution brings the problem of England back into the political limelight. It is not new, but there has never been a good answer to it, and regional mayors are simply another attempt to solve a potentially insoluble problem. It is that England is too big.

England contains 85% of the population of the United Kingdom. This has risen since the time of Arthur Balfour (1848-1930), when it was just under 75%. Nonetheless, he made a point in relation to Home Rule for Ireland that remains essential today. Balfour set out his concerns in a speech made in Aberdeen in 1913, when he called Home Rule an “experiment in federalism of the most impossible, unexampled, and preposterous character”. This was because federalism depended, as it still does, on some level of proportionality between the members. If one part overwhelmingly overshadows the others, it cannot work.

This is why we have Parliaments or assemblies for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but not for England. It would dwarf the other bodies in its size, the population it represents, and its wealth. The First Minister of England would be the true prime minister, as his power would, in reality, become greater than that of the nominal prime minister. Thus, to make federalism work, England would have to be divided up into regions that would be at least proportionate to the devolved authorities.

That, however, would be outrageous. How can a federal system be fair when three areas are allowed to retain their historic characters as unified nations, but England cannot? The biggest country would have to be chopped up to accommodate the smaller ones, which was and is simply unfair to the English and deeply undemocratic.

Yet this is the effect of what Burnham seeks to do. It is clear that a new government led by him would look to advance the steps taken by George Osborne, which created regional devolved authorities covering made-up areas. They have no geographic logic, no historic unity, and no democratic mandate.

With the exception of the Greater London Authority, whenever a vote has been allowed via a referendum on these structures, they have been defeated. They have been dreamt up by bureaucrats for the convenience of officialdom, not for the benefit of residents.

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Jacob

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Turmoil in Downing Street and a rapid turnover of Prime Ministers is not new. It has been part of the system since the 18th century and depends much on personalities as on events. In the 305 years since Sir Robert Walpole became First Lord of the Treasury and de facto Prime Minister, there have been 58 holders of the office, if Lord Bath and Lord Waldegrave are excluded, as they usually are (Bath was given the seals of office as First Lord of the Treasury, but returned them after 48 hours in 1746 as he could not form a government, while Waldegrave tried for five days in 1757 in similar circumstances and also failed).

Waldegrave’s mini prime ministership came in a period almost as volatile as our own. From 1756 to 1766, the Duke of Newcastle was replaced by the Duke of Devonshire in 1757, who was briefly succeeded by Waldegrave, who was then superseded by a returning Newcastle. He lasted five years, including over the transition from George II to George III, until the Earl of Bute took his place for just under a year before Grenville assumed office until 1765, when the Marquis of Rockingham kissed hands, only to be replaced by William Pitt the Elder.

Thus in ten years there were seven complete appointments of a Prime Minister and one aborted one. During this period the country did rather well, even though it was at war for much of it. The Seven Years’ War, which Pitt strongly supported, ran from 1756 to 1763, and included the great and famous year of victories, 1759, when successes such as Pondicherry secured India and the wonderful generalship of Wolfe’s victory at Quebec removed the French threat from Canada. War obviously has an economic cost and adds to taxation, which is never popular, so was part of the reason for the instability.

Personal factors also mattered. Pitt was the driving force of the time, a much bigger political figure than any of his rivals, possibly on the scale of Boris Johnson in terms of his charisma and popular appeal. He was loved by the people and known as the Great Commoner. It was down to him that England was victorious in the Seven Years’ War, and it was said in 1759 that “The church bells were worn threadbare with ringing for victories”.

Yet Pitt was not a collegiate man, and George III disliked him because he had, in his view, betrayed his father, Frederick, Prince of Wales, by serving George II. Hanoverian fathers rarely got on with their sons. Thus George I hated George II, who likewise loathed his heir Frederick Prince of Wales, the father of George III. In this context anyone who abandoned Frederick to support George II was deemed to be a traitor by George III.

Pitt was also mad, not just as a term of political abuse, but in the sense that in a modern age he would probably have been certified. On some occasions he could not bear to see anyone at all, so his food was simply taken to his room by a footman and he would eat it alone. As the footman brought the food in, Pitt would be looking out of the window, as he could not bear even to see anyone else. Perhaps understandably, George III did not want this man to be his Prime Minister, so avoided it by giving his tutor Bute the role once he had eased out Newcastle.

It was also a period of political transition. Boswell recorded Johnson saying, “Walpole was a minister given by the King to his people: Pitt was a minister given by the people to the King”. This epigram illustrates the constitutional development that was taking place at the time, although one it is easier to spot in retrospect.

Although the country was a long way from reform, the position of prime minister was moving from being one purely of royal patronage, but a place that needed popular support as well. The age of Walpole and Pelham had gone, the King’s ministers who knew how to control the Commons, and now the Commons was more sensitive to popular demands, and a king might well have to appoint a prime minister who was not his first choice.

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Part VII: The Committee…

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Since Andy Burnham has won the Makerfield by-election, there must be a new election for the Mayor of Greater Manchester. In most cases, mayors may remain Members of Parliament, but this is not allowed if the mayoralty includes the role of Police and Crime Commissioner.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Labour has rushed through a change to the mayoral voting system, in the hope of making it easier to win this second election. Losing it would be a catastrophic blow for a new Prime Minister, assuming the existing one is out of office by then, especially if he were the man who had caused the vacancy.

In 2011, 13 million people voted ‘No’ to the Alternative Vote replacing First Past the Post (FPTP) for British elections, while a mere 6.1 million voted for the change. Support for the status quo was a little over two-thirds of the electorate, while only 32.1% wanted a new system. Turnout was relatively low at 42%, but respectable, especially when it was such a clear margin.

This referendum applied only to parliamentary elections, but its clear result ought surely to have some relevance to other elections. Certainly, it provided some justification for the last Conservative government instituting FPTP for mayors and police commissioner elections, where a proportional system had previously been used. Yet Labour has used its parliamentary majority to return to the Supplementary Vote system.

The Supplementary Vote system is not quite the same as the Alternative Vote, but it is similar. In the Alternative Vote, electors rank each party or candidate in turn and may use as many preferences as there are candidates, although the last preference would always be otiose. The votes are then reallocated as each candidate in turn is eliminated, starting with the person with the lowest number of votes, until only two candidates are left, at which point the one with the most votes is the winner.

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It is sad to see the Bank of England, once the cornerstone of British prosperity, now a debased institution that is incompetent, idle and dishonest. These are heavy charges to fire at a once great organisation, but each is true.

The job of the Bank is set out in law; it must keep inflation within a range around a 2% target. It has failed. It also has a long-standing responsibility to maintain confidence in the currency which it does not seem to realise is part of its job.

The inflation failure was caused because the Monetary Policy Committee took no notice of monetary policy. To help the government pay for Covid it printed billions of pounds and was then slow to react even when its own chief economist, Andrew Haldane, warned that inflation was about to takeoff. It dismissed these fears and pretended that price increases were temporary, so inflation soared to 11.1% at its peak in 2022. In comparison, Japan saw a peak closer to 4%.

This failure of policy making by the notably independent Bank of England continues to have consequences for British families. The cost of living crisis was caused by its inability to do its job. Unlike the Federal Reserve in the United States, its obligation to control prices is not tempered by another objective such as economic growth. It is a simple, single rule and the Bank bungled.

This failure came about because it believed its own propaganda, while the MPC was more concerned to meet its quotas for diversity of background than to have any diversity of opinion.

Its solution to the 2008 financial crisis and to covid was “monetary easing“, a polite term for printing money. It was a sensible answer to the credit crunch but not to the supply disruptions that were caused by Covid. The billions of pounds that were printed meant that too much money was chasing too few goods which was inevitably inflationary. Unfortunately, the bank did not even understand what it was doing wrong.

It also became deeply political during this time, not least by enforcing the green dogma on lenders. The Prudential Regulatory Authority still boasts on its webpages that it “was the first central bank and supervisor authority to set supervisory expectations for PRA-regulated Banks and insurers (firms) management of climate related financial risks“. This discouraged investment in oil and gas exploration especially in the North Sea. It also has nothing to do with the Bank’s role, it was egregious political interference in a highly controversial area which, since Russia invaded Ukraine, has proved both foolish and damaging to the UK economy.

After failing on inflation and politicising risk management, the Bank now seems set on undermining the currency because it does not understand the illusion of paper money. Money is supposed to be a unit of account, a means of exchange and a store of value. A unit of account is easy to achieve. The other two are more complicated as “fiat” currency, that is to say money that is not backed by a real asset, such as gold or silver, is entirely a matter of confidence. The value of a bank note is zero, yet it is accepted as a means of exchange because the seller knows that he will be able to use it to pay for other goods and services. Notes are still a means of exchange even when they fail to be a store of value. This is shown as pound notes continue to be accepted even though over the last 112 years they have become worthless.

In 1914 if a customer went into his bank with a £1 note he could have demanded and would have received a gold sovereign in return. These coins are still minted and have just under a quarter of a Troy ounce of gold in them, they have the monarch’s head on the obverse and St George slaying the Dragon on the reverse. Powerful symbolism to indicate the strength and value of the currency and indeed the country. Historically coinage was used as a way of showing the authority of the ruler and the solidity of the money.

The sovereign you could have received for £1 in 1914 is now worth nearly £800 in its gold value where is the pound note is still worth a pound. Inflation has destroyed the value of paper money whereas the gold coin kept its value for centuries; it was worth a little more in 1914 then it was in 1661 just after the restoration of Charles II.

The devaluation of paper currency proves its illusory quality. It has not been, and will not be, a store of value; even with inflation at the target of 2% prices double every 35 years. Heroic figures help to maintain the illusion while rabbits do not. When paper currency was backed by gold it did not need these designs; the words “I promise to pay the bearer on demand“ were sufficient. However, as inflation debased the currency so it became necessary to boost confidence by putting the Queen‘s head on one side and then important figures on the other. This made notes look more serious. Now the opposite is happening and the anodyne approach, taken by countries that have little history or are too politically divided to accept individual heroes, is proposed which further undermines their store of value.

It fails to learn from the history of coinage which always used to be an expression of power and of the United States, which does not endlessly fiddle with its notes. This continuity has helped the dollar to preserve and even enhance its global preeminence.

The idleness of the Bank is shown by its employment practices. On its website it claims to employ over 5000 people, although in other places it says 4000 people so may not even know who it employs, some of whom it allows to work not only from home but from abroad for 40 days, the equivalent of two months, a year. This is effectively paid truancy. The Bank restricts the equipment that it staff may take abroad because of the security risk, so must realise that its employees, sipping piña coladas in Havana, will be unable to work because they cannot take their laptops with them. As the institution that is responsible for the cost of living crisis, this is a contemptuous way to treat the taxpayer who funds their salaries.

Sadly, it is also dishonest as it did not tell the truth over its decision to change its notes. The Governor, Andrew Bailey, said it had to be done for security reasons when he stated that “the Bank’s foremost objective is the security of our bank notes, which includes tackling the threat from counterfeiting”. Unfortunately, this is humbug, it was a political decision. A freedom of information request has now revealed that Bank commissioned research said that the great figures from our history were “contentious and not representative of the UK’s cultural and natural diversity” and such figures represented “a backward looking vision of the United Kingdom that carries too great a risk of division and controversy”.

This incompetence, idleness and dishonesty is a consequence of the politicisation of the bank which started under Mark Carney. He hated Brexit and made the Bank an active participant in the referendum campaign. He also imbued it with his personal green agenda. Bailey has done nothing to stop this, so we yearn for the return of Lord King who was the last proper Governor, a man who respected the proprieties of the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street.

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This poem ought to be known to …

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If you missed the earlier installments, you can find them here:

Part VI: The Second Reading

Part V: The First Reading

Part IV: From conception…

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Bede is undoubtedly better known than many of those that I have considered in my series on the greatest figures in English history but, nevertheless, much of his significance is largely forgotten. We owe him the very concept of Englishness, and whenever you date a contract by the conventional dating system for years, 2026 for instance, you are commemorating Bede.

Bede lived in the northeast of England in the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow, where he wrote commentaries upon the Bible, composed sermons, considered dates, and developed a system for counting on fingers by which schoolboys could pass coded messages to each other. Perhaps most famously, he wrote what is called the first English history.

Bede’s life, by way of biography, is little known. His works were prodigious and influential, but he rarely mentioned much of his personal life, although there are a few hints. One such is that he was orphaned at an early age and had a strong monastic vocation. This comes from the anonymous Life of Ceolfrith.

Ceolfrith was the abbot of Jarrow, which was hit so badly by the plague that only two members of the monastic choir survived. One was the abbot himself, and the other seems to have been Bede. As the Life recounts, “In the monastery over which Ceolfrith presided, all who could read or preach or recite the Antiphons were swept away, except the Abbot himself and one little lad nourished and taught by him, who is now a priest of the same monastery, and both by word of mouth and by writing commends to all who wish to know them the Abbot’s worthy deeds. And the Abbot, sad at heart because of this visitation, ordained that contrary to their former rite, they should, except at Vespers and Matins, recite their Psalms without Antiphons, and when this had been done with many tears and lamentations on his part for the space of a week, he could not bear it any longer, but decreed that the Psalms and the Antiphons should be restored to their order, according to the regular course; and by means of himself and the aforesaid boy, he carried out with no little labour that which he had decreed, until he could either train them himself or procure from elsewhere men able to take part in the divine service”. The little lad, nourished and taught by him, was almost certainly Bede, and Ceolfrith was almost an adopted father, in effect, as well as being Bede’s spiritual father.

When Ceolfrith departed for Rome in 716, as he knew his life was drawing to a close, Bede was struck by a sudden anguish of mind. Benedicta Ward, in her biography of Bede, argues that his shock and unawareness of Ceolfrith’s departure show the extent to which Bede was concentrating on his studies and his daily religious duties; she indicates a rather unworldly young man.

This is supported by his comments about religious people, even bishops, who enjoyed “laughing, joking, storytelling, feasting and drinking, instead of feeding their souls with heavenly sacrifices”. This makes Bede sound rather humourless, but he had a high purpose. He wanted to save souls and devoted all his work to that end.

There is a story of how in his old age, when his sight was failing him, “Some mockers said to him… ‘Bede, behold, the people are gathered together waiting to hear the word of God, arise and preach to them’. And he, thirsting for the salvation of souls, went up and preached, thinking that there were people there, whereas there was no one but the mockers”.

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However, artificial intelligence, the new AI, is of more fundamental importance and will affect all our lives individually as well as society at large. As an experiment, I have asked ChatGPT to write this article in my style and will add it at the end of this piece.

Pope Leo XIV issued a Papal Encyclical on the 15th May entitled Magnifica Humanitas. This is more than just a discussion of AI. It is a wide-ranging text deliberately placing itself in the pantheon of Catholic social teaching. It celebrates the 135th anniversary of the Encyclical Rerum Novarum, in which Pope Leo XIII “gave impetus to the reflexion on society, the economy and politics, which is now known as the ‘social doctrine of the Church’”. The current Pope uses a careful discussion of the evolution of the Church’s social doctrine to justify his role in commentating on “the technocratic paradigm and digital power”.

The Pope’s concerns are of “humanity becoming a victim of its own achievements”, risking a new Tower of Babel. He worries that control is with corporations, not states, and that “criteria for judgment and discernment in the new situation… the inalienable, inalienable dignity of the human person, the common good, the universal doctrine of goods, subsidiarity, solidarity and social justice, may be at risk”.

The Holy Father cautiously notes that any statement on AI risks being quickly outdated, and that even those who design them possess only a limited understanding of their actual functioning. His main point is the fairly uncontroversial one that AI can be a valuable tool, but it calls for a measured and vigilant approach.

His conclusion is that AI needs a human touch as it will affect human lives, and this must be done with a moral compass. A machine, however clever it appears to be, cannot have such a conscience. This is especially true, he argues, in relation to AI used for military purposes, when potential targets must be considered in the light of morality. The ability to go to war without risking the lives of your soldiers should not be a reason to do so.

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